‘Gronneeeeee!’

‘Don’t worry about it, Kes. Gronny will pop up and deal with that in a minute. You take Rab C. back to bed.’

‘It’s the best bed ever.’ Big yawn. ‘Love you, Gronny!’

‘Love you too!’ She bowed her head apologetically at her guest as he trotted off. ‘This way, your high—’

‘Call me Atiya.’ The princess smiled with a very unregal wink.

‘Pretty name.’ Ronnie led the way.

‘Isn’t it? My husband gave it to me when we married. It means Gift of Allah.’

‘How charming. I really am most sorry we’re not terribly hospitable. Had we known…’

‘It’s we who should be apologising. Mishaal’s a very determined man, and he insisted we must come here before we fly home. The plane can wait on the tarmac at Heathrow for as long as it takes, but it is very rude of us to take up your time like this.’

‘Not at all. Here you go!’ Ronnie reached in and tugged the Eiffel Tower light pull. It was just as bad as she’d feared: freezing cold, it smelled of cheap air freshener and mould – thank goodness not wee – and had Kes’s booster step in front of it, an abandoned Minion on the windowsill.

But Princess Atiya was looking at the framed photographs that tiled the walls with such wide-eyed delight, Ronnie could have just led her into Santa’s grotto. ‘OMG! You know these people?’

‘Back in the day, yes.’ Ronnie followed her gaze around the little room, a Hall of Fame for latter-day Compton Magna horses that had gone on to the most successful competition careers: showing, point-to-point, jumping and horse trials. Amongst them was an elite scattering of four-star eventers. Her royal guest was studying these closely, spotting Britain’s hunkiest Olympic eventing pin-up aboard one, his much-loved wife on another. ‘Those two were my absolute heroes as a girl. Look at these! There’s Ginny and there’s Lucinda, and Hugo again here. It’s like a Who’s Who. You still breed horses like this?’

‘It’s our stock-in-trade.’

‘I know it’s an imposition this late in the evening, but I would love to see them.’

‘Not a problem!’ Ronnie backed out, now delighted by the power of her downstairs loo. Thank you, Grandpa, she mouthed as the door closed, just in case he was in there, before hurrying back to check on the prince who Bay was trying to convince to try pheasant shooting.

‘We’ve some marvellous drives just across the valley here.’

Resplendent in his white throbe and shemagh headdress, the prince had a rather sinister scar, like Blofeld, running across one eye. He’d been wearing dark aviator glasses to cover it when he arrived, but due the extreme dimness of the house’s light bulbs, he’d dispensed with these, his one seeing eye all-knowing.

His bodyguard stood cross-armed behind their sofa. It looked like a scene from a James Bond movie, apart from the open Toy Story DVD cases and abandoned Mini Boden hoodie. Ronnie would have liked to have taken her guests to the drawing room in which Major Frank had entertained Prince Aly Khan, but when she’d put her head in it earlier it had been so cold she’d seen her breath, and one of the dogs had disembowelled a rat on the Persian rug.